By Daniel Brock
dbrock@scbiznews.com
Published March 15, 2010

A cruise ship that sailed from Charleston will return to port a day early with passengers experiencing an outbreak of illness for the third time in as many trips.

Celebrity Cruises announced today that its ship, the Celebrity Mercury, is cutting its current voyage short by a day and returning to Charleston on Thursday after 342 of 1,829 passengers on board became sick with gastrointestinal illness.

The Mercury will skip its call in Tortola, British Virgin Islands, and also stay in port here for a two-day cleaning.

The story was first reported on USA Today’s Cruise Log.

“I have made this decision to delay the sailing because we want to maintain our high health standards onboard our ships, while providing our guests with the best cruise experience possible,” Daniel Hanrahan, president and CEO of Celebrity Cruises said in a statement. “The extra time we are taking to sanitize the ship will help prevent any additional guests from becoming ill.”

Previous Coverage:
Port, cruise line officials say virus won’t hurt business

The Mercury, which started sailing from Charleston earlier this year, has been plagued by illness of late. The latest episode comes on the heels of the ship’s Feb. 26-March 8 cruise on which 196 passengers and crew became sick with similar symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea.

The announcement of that outbreak came less than two weeks after more than 400 passengers and crew contracted the norovirus on the Mercury’s Feb. 15-26 voyage. The ship stayed in port an extra day for sanitation following that trip and was delayed three hours for more cleaning after its most recent voyage.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it is testing samples from the Feb. 26-March 8 trip to see if the same illness affected both voyages.

Celebrity is offering refunds for the time missed on the ship and a refund of port charges and taxes for the axed Tortola stop, according the USA Today story. Passengers also will get a future cruise credit worth 25% of the fare paid for their current trip, and the company will pay for hotel rooms in Charleston on Thursday night.

Cases of norovirus have been up across South Carolina and on cruise ships in 2010. The CDC has reported eight outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness on ships departing from U.S. ports so far this year. Only 15 such cases were recorded in all of 2009.

Officials at the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control said they’ve investigated more than double the number of norovirus cases than usual by this point in the year. The incidents, according to DHEC, have appeared largely in institutional settings, such as schools, nursing homes and assisted living facilities, and the increase has been seen across the country.

State Ports Authority officials, who declined comment about the latest outbreak, are hoping that an increased cruise presence will provide a revenue stream to complement its falling container cargo business.

Charleston will host 67 cruise calls in 2010. That number will jump to about 100 in 2011, according to port officials. The SPA also is working toward building a new cruise terminal.